We love growing specialty cut flowers for our community at Anchored Roots Farm. From seed to stem, we are always planning and planting or harvesting blooms.
A couple of years ago we got into selling to florists. It was slow to start but it has grown over time. And it’s one of my favorite parts to the business.
Florists take our product straight from our fields, to their design studios where the flowers are transformed into something entirely different—a work of art.
Often buckets of flowers leave here and I wonder what the final creation will be. I’m excited when I get a notification that I’ve been tagged in a post Instagram by a florist because I love to see what designs they've come up with to the flowers that were once in our field.
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of meeting florist, Ian Tresselt of Tresslt Designs. I love his core values to support local farms and local economies, which he explains here.
It is no small feat to source only from Southern Maryland growers. We are not in close proximity to each other with most of our farms off the beaten path. To schedule with a few of us in a week is challenging and often happens over several days vs. working with a wholesaler (like Potomac Flower Wholesale in Silver Spring) where you can order ahead online for delivery or just walk in for all the flowers you need at a one stop shop. AT one point Becky of Red Tree Farmstead and I explored how to combat this for florists, and maybe one day we will!
But there is something to be said about using 100% local flowers for events, as mentioned in an earlier blog post last spring. Often they are fresher, and more appetizing to the eye because they truly time stamp the date and the scenery around them. They are the season.
We are honored to provide flowers to florists and truly appreciate them going out of their way to buy locally grown flowers from our farm. I can’t forget to mention another florist, Days Of Mays, who had regularly bought our blooms for weddings and events for many years. We also sell to other flower farmers too.
These beautiful photos were captured by Melissa Barrick Creative Co., another brilliant local business providing photography and business branding. She’s brilliant, collaborative, and can make a camera shy client light up with excitement during a shoot.
This particular shoot was for Realtor Chris McNellis. She thoughtfully pulled together a piece for a client shoot to include our locally grown flowers, Ian’s design, and Melissa’s photography, which happened to fall during Maryland’s Buy Local Challenge week! I love following her IG page, weather or not your interested in real estate, at some point everyone needs a realtor, and she’s worth following along not just for listings but general enjoyment and occasional laughs too!
A special thank you to Chris, Melissa and Ian, for this collaboration, as well as all of you who work to continue to make Southern Maryland a beautiful place to be enjoyed!